Wisconsin woman’s obituary asks for donations to Ron Johnson’s 2022 opponent

The obituary for a Wisconsin woman who died late last month included a simple request: In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R-Wis.) opponent in 2022.

Carol Lindeen of Madison died on Feb. 24 in her sleep at the age of 81. The mother of four raised her children to avoid topics like politics and religion at social functions, according to her daughter. 

However, Laurie Lindeen told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that her mother has expressed regret later in life over her politeness.

Carol Lindeen was reportedly “furious” about Johnson’s recent remarks at a Senate hearing to read unproven claims about “provocateurs” and people pretending to be supporters of former President Trump participating in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

“We were watching TV and Ron Johnson was totally whitewashing and, you know, making January 6 sound like it was just a bunch of goofy people having fun. And she was just irate, so she was going off,” Laurie Lindeen said. “She said she wished that she had spoken up more and done more and that she wanted to be a freedom fighter, which is something I’d never heard before.”

Watching the Feb. 23 hearing with her mother left them “both flabbergasted,” according to Laurie Lindeen. That was the last time she saw her mother.

“She just said she wished she had been more involved and outspoken to her convictions, so I figured this was my way of honoring that,” Lindeen said of the obituary.

Lindeen said that she’s gotten “a little blowback” over the dig at Johnson. 

“She said, ‘I wish I would have done more’ when we were watching him,” Laurie added of her mother. “So I just had to put that in.”

When asked about Carol’s obituary, Johnson spokesman Ben Voelkel told he Journal Sentinel: “Our best wishes and sincerest condolences are with her loved ones on their loss.”

Johnson, a Trump ally, has not said whether he will run for reelection in 2022.

The senator has faced backlash for choosing to use his allotted questioning period during the hearing to read from an unverified eyewitness account published by The Federalist.

In excerpts from the piece Johnson read from, the author described seeing “an organized cell of agents-provocateurs to corral people as an unwitting follow-on force behind the plainclothes militants tussling with police,” as well as “fake Trump protesters,” whom he said remained nonviolent during the riot.

Other excerpts read by Johnson appeared to place the blame on Capitol Police officers for inciting the crowd to violence, claiming that “the tear gas changed the crowd’s demeanor. There was an air of disbelief as people realized that the police whom they supported were firing on them.”

Witnesses called to testify at the hearing, including former U.S. Capitol Police Chief Steven Sund, were not given a chance to respond to the account. Instead, the Republican asked them to respond to a list of questions he had provided them in a letter.

Days before the hearing, Johnson also said that he didn’t think the Capitol riot seemed like “an armed insurrection.”

“This will get me in trouble, but I don’t care,” Johnson said. He argued that “groups of agitators” are to blame for the Capitol riot and not “tens of thousands of Trump supporters.”

“The group of people that supported Trump, the hundreds of thousands of people who attended those Trump rallies, those are the people that love this country,” Johnson said. “They never would have done what happened on Jan. 6. That is a group of people that love freedom; that’s a group of people we need to unify and keep on our side.”

A number of conservative lawmakers and figures in the media have alleged that the left-wing antifa movement — not right-wing agitators and Trump — were responsible for the mob insurrection. 

However, FBI Director Christopher Wray rejected those claims this week. He testified on Tuesday that the Bureau has no evidence that far-left violent extremists were involved.